Surface plasmon resonance biosensor based on gold-coated side-polished hexagonal structure photonic crystal fiber

The refractive index sensing characteristics of the side-polished photonic crystal fiber (PCF) surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor are detailed investigated in this paper. We used the finite element method (FEM) to study the influences of the side-polished depth, air hole size, lattice constant, and the refractive index (RI) of the PCF material on sensing performance. The simulation results show that the side-polished depth, air hole size, lattice pitch have significant influence on the coupling strength between core mode and surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), but have little influence on sensitivity; the coupling strength and sensitivity will significant increase with the decrease of RI of the PCF material. The sensitivity of the D-shaped PCF sensor is obtained to be as high as 21700 nm/RIU in the refractive index environment of 1.33-1.34, when the RI of the PCF material is controlled at 1.36. It revealed a new method of making ultra-high sensitivity SPR fiber sensor. Then we experimental demonstrated a SPR refractive sensor based on the side-polished single mode PCF and investigated the sensing performance. The experimental results of the plasmon resonance wavelength sensitivity agree well with the theoretical results. The presented gold-coated D-shaped PCF SPR sensor could be used as a simple, cost-effective, high sensitivity device in bio-chemical detection.